blip

As I have said, the sounds made by fin and blue whales are both the loudest and the lowest sounds yet attributed to any animal [...] In the case of fin whales, the songs are in the form of slow, measured sequences of sounds, which when they were first seen on the very slow moving paper recorders of the early sixties (the paper moved about an inch each hour) were called "blips" because they looked like brief spikes instead of the second-long moans that they are.
It is hard to imagine a less apt term than "blip" for a twenty-hertz, deep-throated moan lasting a second. However, by being such an entirely inappropriate term it becomes memorable - rather like a dalmatian I once knew named Stripe.

(Among whales, by Roger Payne)

An elephant? A gnu? A howler monkey? I must read this book.

Let's say it's about a mammal whose vocalization should NOT be called blip.
I requested the book - google books cuts the quotation!

It sounds excellent - please give me the details. Mine is about a person - or is it a machine? - which emits that sound, and I'm enjoying it.

It's about a group of mammals that emits that sound.

What book is it? I was just reading a book today which made extensive use of this word.

I can't believe I have to request a book to the NYPL just to add a quotation about this word.